Mafia Card Game Rules: Cards, Roles and Night Phases

Before you deal

A moderator-led teaching adaptation for six role-holding players plus one moderator; not Davidoff’s original moderator-free rules.

Compiled by Card Games Starting With M · Sources checked 2026-10-17

Players: 7 total for this teaching setup: 6 players + 1 moderator
Cards & equipment: Selected cards from a standard deck

Mafia card game rules for this teaching setup

Here, Mafia means the social deduction party game played with secret roles assigned by cards. It does not mean a gangster-themed deck-building game. The cards tell players which team or role they have; players do not take trick-taking turns with those cards.

This is a small teaching setup for seven people total: six players and a moderator. It adapts the narrator, Mafia, investigator and protector roles documented by PenMet Parks. The exact group size, voting procedure, protection restrictions and ending below are our stated house rules. They are a starting arrangement, not a proven balance formula or universal Mafia standard.

Prepare six role cards

Card	Role	Task
One ace	Mafia	Secretly select one night target.
One king	Detective	Ask whether one living player is Mafia.
One queen	Doctor	Protect one living player that night.
Three number cards	Townspeople	Discuss and vote; no night action.

Pick cards with identical backs, shuffle and give one to each of the six players. Everyone checks their own card privately. The moderator receives no role card, sees all roles and keeps a private record. Announce the role list openly before dealing, but keep each person’s assignment secret.

Run each night in a fixed order

Everyone closes their eyes. The moderator quietly wakes Mafia, records one living target, then tells Mafia to sleep.
Wake the detective. They point to one living player; give a silent yes/no answer to whether that player is Mafia, then put the detective to sleep.
Wake the doctor. They point to a living player to protect, then sleep. In this teaching setup self-protection is allowed, but the same person cannot be protected on consecutive nights.
Resolve actions together. If the doctor chose the target, nobody is removed; otherwise remove the target. Only living roles act.

Use the same timing and neutral wording even when a role has been eliminated. Otherwise a long pause can accidentally reveal who still has a special role.

Discuss and vote during the day

Announce the night result without revealing the doctor’s choice or detective’s answer. Give each living player a chance to speak, then accept one nomination and let the accused respond. In this version all living players, including the accused, vote. More than half of the living players must support removal; a tie or failed majority removes nobody and ends the day.

Reveal a removed player’s card in this teaching version. Removed players stop speaking, voting and signaling. Reveal rules differ elsewhere, so say this before dealing. Begin another night if the game has not ended.

Winning and an example vote

The town wins when Mafia is removed. For this teaching setup, Mafia wins when no more than one non-Mafia player remains, ending a position in which the town can no longer outvote Mafia. Check this after every removal. This parity ending is an explicit house rule, rather than Davidoff’s original wording.

Example: with five living players, three votes are needed for removal. Two votes are insufficient even if the other votes are split. Ask players to explain changes in their accounts and voting choices. Being quiet, nervous or new is not reliable proof of a secret role.

A worked night and vote in this teaching setup

Suppose Mafia selects Jordan and the doctor also protects Jordan. The moderator announces that nobody was removed, without saying who received protection. All six role-holding players are still alive, so a removal vote needs four supporters under our majority rule. A nomination receiving only two votes fails even if nobody makes a competing nomination.

The doctor cannot protect Jordan again on the following night in this teaching setup. That restriction belongs to the house rules stated above; do not add it silently to another group’s game. Keep the moderator’s private action record separate from what players publicly know. The town may speculate about a save, but the announcement does not identify the doctor, confirm the detective’s target or prove that a particular player is innocent.

Original Mafia and larger-group variants

Davidoff’s published original uses red and black cards, no detective or doctor, and written night selections instead of this moderator script. Its setup lists six to sixteen role-holding players with different Mafia counts. Do not combine that count table with special roles and claim the result is the original game.

For a larger group, choose a complete published ruleset and its role distribution. Adding Mafia, protection or investigations changes the information and voting balance. The six-player arrangement above is deliberately specific so a beginner can run a complete first round.

Rule references and corrections

This independent explanation uses the references below. Follow the instructions for the edition you own and agree on house rules before play.

Found a mistake? Send a correction with the game name and source.

A few useful answers

Questions before you deal

Is the moderator included in the player count?

This guide counts seven people total: six role-holding players and one moderator. Other sources sometimes count only the people holding roles.

Can you play Mafia with an ordinary deck?

Yes. Use selected cards with identical backs to assign roles privately; a custom Mafia deck is unnecessary for this setup.

Are the doctor and detective in the original Mafia rules?

They are common additions. Davidoff’s published original uses only Mafia and Honest teams and a different night procedure.

What happens on a tied vote?

In this teaching version nobody is removed and the game proceeds to night. Agree on a tie rule before dealing because other versions use runoffs or different thresholds.

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